Wizards Relish the Playoffs and the Long Lines

The Washington Wizards drew 23,356 to their first home playoff game in six years at Verizon Center on Friday, but they lost to the Chicago Bulls, 100-97.Credit
Win Mcnamee/Getty Images

WASHINGTON — When Richard Galiffa went to grab a snack during halftime of Friday’s Washington Wizards game, he noticed something strange clogging the concourse of Verizon Center: dozens of men standing in a line.

“What’s this?” he said to his son, Nicolas.

“I think it’s the line for the men’s room,” Nicolas answered.

The Galiffas, who are season-ticket holders, laughed because they had never noticed long lines before during Wizards games.

“Just a few weeks ago, nobody around here even knew this team even existed,” said Nicolas, 26, a graduate student. “Seriously, the girl that cuts my hair didn’t even know Washington had a basketball team. And she works in a sports-themed barbershop.”

On Friday, the Wizards hosted a playoff game for the first time in six years, losing to the Chicago Bulls, 100-97. Even with the loss, the city’s basketball fans have been jarred awake, and the Wizards still hold a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven series.

Fans descended on the arena Friday as if the Wizards were hosting a giant, long-awaited family reunion. They stood in the rain to enter, many wearing new Wizards T-shirts and caps, as a brass band blared rally songs.

“The last time I came to Wizards games was years ago,” said Keels, 44, adding that she had been unable to bring herself to buy a ticket in recent years because the team was so bad.

The Wizards’ last winning season was 2007-8, when Gilbert Arenas guided them to the playoffs. Fans have since had little reason to pay attention until now. For the team to get any love here, the Wizards must win.

Above all, this is a football town. On game days, Redskins fans head to the suburbs, honking their horns as if the team had just won the Super Bowl — which it has not done since 1991 — and flying Redskins flags, only to be disappointed year after year.

After that, Washington is a baseball town. People flock to Nationals Park — even for a night game this month during which the temperature dipped into the 30s — to reminisce about their good ol’ granddads who used to take them to Senators games. The baseball that unfolds in front of them is often mediocre.

Then, a hockey town. Verizon Center sells out season after season as the Capitals go to the verge of the Stanley Cup, only to break the fans’ hearts.

One vendor who sells team T-shirts near the Capitol said he did not sell Wizards shirts because “I’m not here to lose money.”

Photo

Wizards guard John Wall, dunking against Chicago in Game 3, said, despite the loss, it was “everything me and my teammates have been waiting for.”Credit
Geoff Burke/USA Today Sports, via Reuters

But it might be time for him to invest in new inventory. The Wizards are young and thrilling, filled with so much bravado, you would think they were the Miami Heat. Led by John Wall and Bradley Beal in the backcourt, they are the N.B.A.’s hot, up-and-coming team.

“We’re not doing anything different,” Beal said. “It’s just that people are finally noticing.”

The Wizards are actually doing something different: They are playing great basketball. They are sharing the ball and defending even better. Veterans like Nene and Trevor Ariza give the team needed maturity. Players like Wall and Beal provide electricity.

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Wall flexed his biceps after hitting a shot Friday, and the crowd roared. Once, he did a midair spin near the basket before letting the ball leave his fingers. The move was unnecessary, and he missed the shot. But it was so cool, who cared?

Wall, 23, is trying hard to make a name for his team. So he bristled when someone suggested that the facial hair he was growing was “a hockey playoff beard.”

In each of his previous three seasons, the Wizards never won more than 35 percent of their games. Now Wall is becoming used to a new feeling, with the team going 44-38 and earning the fifth seed in the Eastern Conference.

Despite the loss to the Bulls, he said his first home playoff game had been great and exciting and “everything me and my teammates have been waiting for.”

The fans and the team management were not as dazzling.

When the Bulls took a lead late in the first half, the crowd grew nearly silent. What drew the biggest reaction was an announcement on the video screen that every fan would receive a free chicken sandwich if the Bulls player at the line missed two consecutive free throws.

The halftime entertainment consisted of a man juggling items like hoops, Frisbees, tennis rackets and table-tennis balls that he spat methodically from his mouth. And a distracting ad for a bedbug removal service scrolled on the big screen just before the fans were prompted to yell, “De-fense!”

Everyone must be forgiven for being out of practice. The Wizards’ last playoff game was in 2008, when George W. Bush was president. The last time the franchise won a championship, Jimmy Carter lived in the White House, Verizon Center did not exist, and the team was known as the Bullets. That was 1978, and it might have been the last time Washington was focused on its N.B.A. team.

Bernie Wixon, 67, remembered sitting in the fifth row for Game 6 of the seven-game N.B.A. finals against Seattle. The arena, in suburban Landover, Md., shook with elation. People all around town proudly wore the jerseys of players like Elvin Hayes and Wes Unseld.

“This was before the Redskins won a Super Bowl, so it was a very, very big deal, and everyone was into it,” said Wixon, who works for the government. “But really, there’s been such a dry spell with the team, it’s like people here have just forgotten about them.”

The Wizards did not win Friday’s game, but they made people remember the glory days, and that alone was good enough to win Washington’s heart.

Even if that heart is fickle.

Verneda Folks, 48, an information technology security specialist who holds Wizards season tickets, said the Nationals were usually her favorite team.

“Now, my No. 1 is the Wizards,” she said. When asked how long she had felt that way, Folks said, “A week.”

Email: juliet@nytimes.com

A version of this article appears in print on April 27, 2014, on Page SP7 of the New York edition with the headline: Wizards Relish the Playoffs and the Long Lines. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe